There is provided a holographic projector comprising a reflective liquid crystal display device. The reflective liquid crystal display device comprises a light-modulating layer between a first substrate and a second substrate substantially parallel to the first substrate. The light-modulating layer comprises planar-aligned nematic liquid crystals having positive dielectric anisotropy. The first substrate is substantially transparent and comprises a first alignment layer arranged to impart a first pre-tilt angle θ.sub..Math. on liquid crystals proximate the first substrate, wherein θ.sub.1>5°. The second substrate is substantially reflective and comprises a second alignment layer arranged to impart a second pre-tilt angle Θ.sub.2 on liquid crystals proximate the second substrate, wherein θ.sub.2>5°. The reflective liquid crystal display device further comprises a plurality of pixels defined on the light-modulating layer having a pixel repeat distance x, wherein x≤10 μm. The distance d between inside faces of the first substrate and second substrate satisfies 0.5 μm≤d≤3 μm, and the birefringence of the liquid crystal Δη≥0.20. The holographic projector further comprises a display driver arranged to drive the reflective liquid crystal display device to display a hologram by independently-driving each pixel at a respective modulation level selected from a plurality of modulation levels having a phase modulation value.

A WSS device in which a VIPA is used as a spectral disperser. In an example embodiment, the VIPA is configured to produce two or more diffraction orders on the LCOS micro-display of the WSS device. The LCOS micro-display is configurable to independently process light corresponding to different diffraction orders. For example, the LCOS micro-display may be used to implement: (i) optical-signal switching by applying different relative phase shifts to light of different diffraction orders to cause constructive interference at a selected one of the optical ports of the WSS device; (ii) optical-signal splitting by steering light of different diffraction orders to at least two different selected optical ports of the WSS device; and (iii) controllable optical-signal attenuation by applying different relative phase shifts to different diffraction orders to control the relative degree of constructive and destructive interference at a selected one of the optical ports of the WSS device.

A compound metaoptic is presented. The compound metaoptic is comprised of at least two phase-discontinuous metasurfaces, which can convert an incident light beam to an aperture field with a desired magnitude, phase, and polarization profile. Each of the constitutive metasurfaces is designed to exhibit specific refractive properties, which vary along the metasurface. Furthermore, due to its transmission-based operation, the metaoptic can operate without lenses and be low profile: potentially having a thickness on the order of a few wavelengths or less. A systematic design procedure is also presented, which allows conversion between arbitrary complex-valued field distributions without reflection, absorption or active components. Such compound metaoptics may find applications where a specific complex field distribution is desired, including displaying holographic images and augmented or virtual reality systems.

A spatial light modulator and a liquid-crystal module are provided. The spatial light modulator includes a first liquid-crystal module and a second liquid-crystal module that are arranged opposite to each other. The first liquid-crystal module includes a first array substrate, a first color filter substrate, and a plurality of first spacers disposed therebetween. The second liquid-crystal module includes a second array substrate, a second color filter substrate, and a plurality of second spacers disposed therebetween. The first array substrate, the first color filter substrate, the second color filter substrate, and the second array substrate are stacked sequentially. At least one first spacer forms a first overlapped unit, and at least one second spacer forms a second overlapped unit. An orthographic projection of the first overlapped unit on the first array substrate fully overlaps an orthographic projection of the second overlapped unit on the first array substrate.

A spatial light modulator and a liquid-crystal module are provided. The spatial light modulator includes a first liquid-crystal module and a second liquid-crystal module that are arranged opposite to each other. The first liquid-crystal module includes a first array substrate, a first color filter substrate, and a plurality of first spacers disposed therebetween. The second liquid-crystal module includes a second array substrate, a second color filter substrate, and a plurality of second spacers disposed therebetween. The first array substrate, the first color filter substrate, the second color filter substrate, and the second array substrate are stacked sequentially.

Provided is an operation method for a digital hologram implementation device including a backlight and a spatial light modulator, the operation method including setting an initial phase value of an optical signal to a remedy phase, computing a reduced phase based on the remedy phase, correcting the remedy phase based on a difference between the reduced phase and a preset optimized phase, determining whether the corrected remedy phase is a stabilized phase, performing forward propagation on the stabilized phase and an amplitude of the optical signal, correcting the amplitude of the optical signal, performing backward propagation on the corrected amplitude and the stabilized phase, and determining whether a phase derived by the backward propagation is an optimized phase.

A complex light modulator including a first polarization plate, a second polarization plate provided, an amplitude modulator provided between the first polarization plate and the second polarization plate, a phase modulator provided between the amplitude modulator and the second polarization plate, and color filters provided between the amplitude modulator and the phase modulator.

An image processing engine and method of forming a hologram of a target image for projection using data streaming. An input or primary image is sub-sampled using a kernel and the secondary image output used to generate a hologram of the target image. A technique of kernel sub-sampling using a plurality of two or more data streams provides improvements in efficiency, including reduced data storage requirements and increased processing speed.

There is provided a holographic projection system arranged to project light to a rectangular replay field. The holographic projection system comprises: a spatial light modulator, comprising an array of pixels, arranged to receive a computer-generated hologram and output spatially-modulated light forming a holographic reconstruction at the rectangular replay field, wherein each pixel is rectangular; and a light source arranged to illuminate the plurality of pixels to form the spatially-modulated light forming a holographic reconstruction at the replay field, wherein the rectangular replay field is spatially separated from the spatial light modulator and the aspect ratio of the rectangular replay field is substantially equal to the aspect ratio of each pixel but orthogonally orientated.

The present invention is an apparatus and method for display of a diffractive pattern. An array of optical elements called phasels are operative to transmit light of different phase shifts to create a diffractive pattern. Individual optical elements may create fixed phase shifts, or the phase shift may be variable. A method is demonstrated for encoding a diffractive pattern onto an array of phasels for display of a three dimensional image.